OPS Holds 'AIADMK Meeting'; Says This Is 'Dharma Yudham 2.0'

O Panneerselvam, former Tamil Nadu chief minister and the leader of a faction of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) held a meeting at the YMCA Hall in Chennai.

The meeting was chaired by former minister Panruti S Ramachandran. Among the MLAs who attended were R Vaithilingam, Paul Manoj Pandian and P Ayyappan. 88 district secretaries and 105 other office bearers appointed by Panneerselvam were also present.

This was the first such state-wide meeting convened by Panneerselvam, after he was expelled from the party in July of this year.

Speaking to the participants, he said that Edappadi K Palaniswami will not be able to gain control of the party illegally by using money power. He challenged Palaniswami to float a new party and win elections to prove his abilities.

He said that his son P Ravindranath was the only AIADMK candidate to win the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in the state and without unity between Pannerselvam and Palaniswami factions, the AIADMK government would not have been able to stay in power as many MLAs had then defected to the TTV Dhinakaran-led faction.

Regarding the late J Jayalalithaa, popularly known as 'Amma', he said she should remain the eternal general secretary of the party and Palaniswami had 'sinned' by removing her from the position.

Regarding party bylaws for nomination to the post of general secretary, the Palaniswami faction had changed it to make the process difficult for lower rung leaders to rise up, he said.

According to the new laws, if anyone wanted to file nomination for the post of general secretary, he would need 10 district secretaries each to propose and second his nomination.

He added that this struggle led by him is another Dharma Yudham, like the one he did in 2017 after the demise of Jayalalitha and that his faction would be successful in regaining the now frozen 'Two Leaves' symbol.